There is an increasing need to support efficient and cost-effective devices or terminals in a cellular communications network. This is especially true with respect to the development of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, which is currently receiving an increasing amount of attention and development. Unlike traditional services, such as voice and web streaming, M2M services often have very different requirements on the cellular communications network. This is due, at least in part, to the specific features of M2M services such as those specified in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Technical Specification (TS) 22.368 V11.6.0, “Service requirements for Machine-Type Communications (MTC); Stage 1.” Another characteristic that distinguishes cellular communications networks with M2M communications is the large increase in the number of Machine Type Communication (MTC) devices. Both the different requirements of M2M services and the large number of MTC devices present new challenges to develop cost-efficient, spectrum-efficient, and energy-efficient radio access technologies for M2M applications and MTC devices in a cellular communications network.
In M2M communications, the MTC devices (e.g., smart meters, signboards, cameras, remote sensors, laptops, and appliances) are connected to the cellular communications network. Most of the MTC devices sporadically transmit one or only a few short packets containing measurements, reports, and triggers, e.g., temperature, humidity, wind speed, etc. In most cases, the MTC devices are expected to be static or to have low mobility. A common understanding of MTC devices is that the MTC devices should be of low complexity targeting low-end (low average revenue per user, low data rate, high latency tolerance) applications. The power/energy consumption of the MTC devices is expected to be low as well.
Several factors affect the cost for both manufacturing and operating a given wireless device. The main manufacturing cost drivers are: (1) processing speed (mainly at reception), (2) number of antennas, and (3) bandwidth. Therefore, 3GPP Radio Access Network (RAN) Work Group 1 (i.e., RAN1) has studied Long Term Evolution (LTE) User Equipment (UE) modem cost reduction techniques for provisioning of low-cost MTC UEs based on LTE. The results of the study are documented in 3GPP Technical Report (TR) 36.888 V2.0.0 (3GPP Tdoc RP-120714), “Study on provision of low-cost Machine-Type Communications (MTC) User Equipments (UEs) based on LTE.” Since then, an updated Study Item Description (SID) (3GPP Tdoc RP-121441, “Study on Provision of low-cost MTC UEs based on LTE”) has been approved which extends the scope of the study to also include study of coverage enhancements. More specifically, the updated SID states that:                A 20 dB improvement in coverage in comparison to defined LTE cell coverage footprint engineered for “normal LTE UEs” should be targeted for low-cost MTC UEs, using very low rate traffic with relaxed latency (e.g. size of the order of 100 bytes/message in UL and 20 bytes/message in DL, and allowing latency of up to 10 seconds for DL and up to 1 hour in uplink, i.e. not voice). In identifying solutions, any other related work agreed for Release 12 should be taken into account.        
This new requirement on enhanced coverage for very low rate traffic with relaxed latency in accordance with the updated SID should be added to the list of requirements on the low-cost MTC UE specified in 3GPP TR 36.888 section 5.1, which are:                Support data rates equivalent to that supported by R′99 Enhanced General Packet Radio Service (EGPRS) with an EGPRS multi-slot class 2 device (2 downlink timeslots (118.4 Kilobits per second (Kbps)), 1 uplink timeslot (59.2 Kbps), and a maximum of 3 active timeslots) as a minimum. This does not preclude the support of higher data rates provided the cost targets are not compromised.        Enable significantly improved average spectrum efficiency for low data rate MTC traffic compared to that achieved for R99 Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)/EGPRS terminals in GSM/EGPRS networks today, and ideally comparable with that of LTE. Optimizations for low-cost MTC UEs should minimize impact on the spectrum efficiency achievable for other terminals (normal LTE terminals) in LTE Release 8-10 networks.        Ensure that service coverage footprint of low cost MTC UE based on LTE is not any worse than the service coverage footprint of GSM/EGPRS MTC device (in an GSM/EGPRS network) or that of “normal LTE UEs” (in an LTE network) assuming on the same spectrum band.        Ensure that overall power consumption is no worse than existing GSM/General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) based MTC devices.        Ensure good radio frequency coexistence with legacy (Release 8-10) LTE radio interface and networks.        Target operation of low-cost MTC UEs and legacy LTE UEs on the same carrier.        Re-use the existing LTE/System Architecture Evolution (SAE) network architecture.        Solutions should be specified in terms of changes to the Release 10 version of the LTE specifications.        The study item shall consider optimizations for both Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) and Time Division Duplexing (TDD) mode.        The initial phase of the study shall focus on solutions that do not necessarily require changes to the LTE base station hardware.        Low cost MTC device support limited mobility (i.e., no support of seamless handover or ability to operate in networks in different countries) and are low power consumption modules.        
Thus, systems and methods for not only meeting the aforementioned requirements for MTC communication and MTC devices but also for optimizing MTC communication and the operation of MTC devices are desired.